Posts Tagged ‘authors’

My First Writing Experiences: A Trip Down Memory Lane

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Living and Life, Novel, Reflections, Writing
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I woke up yesterday morning and was filled with memories of some of my old attempts at writing, the first fiction stories I ever wrote, and how they shaped and defined me over the years, and how I got to this point in my writing.. I wanted to write a post about them, but with all that was going on yesterday, I didn’t have the time. Well, better now than never, right?

The first time I tried to write anything, I must’ve been five or six, eight at the most. I had just seen Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the first time and then read the book, which was infinitely better. My mind was blown, and I could only think to myself, “I want to write something like that”. So I did, creating a similar story to HP1 except with the genders of the characters switched (even then, I had a thing for strong female leads, I guess). I called this obvious copyright violation Amanda Robinson, I gave her a cat instead of an owl, and I planned that the cat was a prince in cat form who would be my main character’s love interest at the end of the book, but beyond that same basic plot as HP1. I didn’t finish this work, either because I had the good sense to stop before I got sued or because at that point in my life I couldn’t keep my focus on any one project for very long. But it did spark my interest in writing, which only grew as time went by.

My next major project was a pirate adventure story called Bane Nycroft and the Maelstrom Pirates (I’m not sure if this one was inspired in any way by Pirates of the Caribbean, but it’s a possibility). That story featured a lycanthropic teenage pirate with a stolen Navy ship, leading a band of fellow orphans on the high seas and stealing from rich government banks and fighting monsters and demons. Along the way the pirate picks up a rebellious princess and they discover an island where all sorts of strange and magical creatures reside, and eventually they take on a prince who’s actually a demon in disguise. This one went through several rewrites, each rewrite growing more supernatural as time went by. Eventually I lost interest, but more than Amanda Robinson, Bane Nycroft gave me a taste of what professional fiction writing was like.

After that came the Davis trilogy, a couple of vampire novels that were inspired by the movie Van Helsing. In those novels, which fused a lot of the Buffy mythology to Van Helsing and my own twisted imagination, a teenager commits suicide after seeing his crush with her boyfriend. The teenager makes a deal with the Devil to become a vampire and take over the world and make the girl his vampiric bride. The girl, on her way to becoming a vampire, must band with her boyfriend, her older brother, and her best friend, who happens to be a witch, to stop this horrible vampire from turning the world into permanent darkness. I actually got to the third book with this one, but at that time the slow realization that nobody would want to publish such a confusing story that ripped off so many works came over me. Plus as I got further along the story got more and more sexualized, which sort of corresponded with where I was at that point in my teenage years.

I wasn’t entirely finished with the vampire mythology though, and almost immediately afterward I began work on Mahiro, which in my opinion had the first inklings of the style of writing I have today. In it a teenage boy travels to an alternate universe inhabited by vampires. While there, he is found by Mahiro, the queen of vampires, who takes a liking to him and turns him into a vampire. But before she can finish the ritual and take his soul, he escapes and finds the human resistance, where he assembles a team of crack fighters to help him take on Mahiro and perhaps find a cure for vampirism. At the same time, he must deal with a romantic triangle, being drawn both to his girlfriend, whom he left on the other side of a dimensional portal, and an equipment tech with some terrific sharp-shooting skills. It was promising, but at that point Twilight was hugely popular and was gaining more fans everyday. As a consequence the number of vampire books out there was astronomical, and I didn’t want to compete with that. With that in mind, I shelved Mahiro until a time I could bring out the characters again and rewrite the story. Until then, no vampires for me.

There was also a poorly-researched caveman story and a Frankenstein-esque horror story I wrote in between Bane Nycroft and the Davis trilogy, plus some attempts at zombie literature. Other than that, those were the main works that preceded the creation of Reborn City, which I’ve stuck with up until now and I’m happy to say will be published as soon as the beta reading period is over, I can create a cover, format the whole darn thing, and get a copyright.

Over the years, I’ve written a lot. My writing style’s changed drastically since I started writing fiction, and I’ve incorporated new elements to my work with every author I’ve read and every experience I’ve gone through. I wonder what the kid who sat in front of the old Windows 97 computer hen-pecking out a Harry Potter rip-off would say if he saw me now and what my writing’s like (probably “Why aren’t you living in a mansion yet?”). I hope to continue to grow in my writing and to create awesome and scary works. And perhaps, unlike my previous work, the characters will be college students or even full adults instead of teenagers. That’d be a break from the past!

Being Loud Does Not Give You The Right To Be Rude

Posted: April 3, 2013 in Reflections, Social Activism
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As you all know, I’m a huge fan of Anne Rice, so when I got my Facebook back in December, I immediately subscribed to her page. As I quickly learned, Ms. Rice likes to use her page to talk about issues important to her, especially LGBT and women’s rights. Earlier this week though, something happened on the page that caused quite the cyber-ruckus: Ms. Rice posted about how female genital mutilation–sometimes euphemistically called “circumcision for girls”–is still practiced openly in many nations and secretly in some such as the US and Great Britain. The reason behind this practice, which causes women to have very painful sexual intercourse and in some cases can cause medical complications and infections? Not consecrating them to any sort of higher being or health reasons like male circumcision, but in order to ensure chastity and virginity. In other words, the sexist belief that women have uncontrollable sexual urges and unless men do something about it, they will have sex left, right, and center.

You wouldn’t believe the meshuggas that happened on her FB page.

When Ms. Rice posts about an issue on her Facebook, she usually does it to bring attention to the issue and cause discussion, hopefully to enact positive change. The unexpected effect though, was that several people on the page began railing against male circumcision and making it impossible to have any rational discussion unless all visitors to the page include male circumcision to their disgust to female circumcision. Some of these people went a step further, insulting anyone who tried to stick to the topic at hand or tried to defend male circumcision for religious and/or health reasons. My own parents, rabbis with many years of experience, were insulted and called nasty words after I tried to defend my religious beliefs against them.

The next day Ms. Rice said that the issue should’ve stuck to female genital mutilation, that she had no idea how the topic got so out of hand, and that those who had been especially insulting would be banned from her page forevermore (apparently she has the power to do that). Many of us, including myself, gave the woman a huge “THANK YOU!” and then started a rational discussion on female genital mutilation.

Now, this was an isolated incident, but it got me thinking on past incidents where people were loud and then incredibly rude. Foremost in my mind was when President Obama came to campus in October, and pro-life advocates showed up to protest with signs that were clearly Photoshopped. Whenever those there for the event tried to be reasonable with them, they jsut seemed to get louder, interrupting every sentence, and getting up in their faces.

And there are other incidents in mind, ones I’ve attended and others I’m happy to have been far away from. There are people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian debate who will say the worst things about whatever side isn’t their own. Gun advocates will often scream at the government trying to take away their Second Amendment rights. And just so I don’t sound like the liberal I probably am and turn off more conservative readers, there are advocates of environmentalism who are so aggressive with their beliefs that it can get out of hand and they will scare people with it. All of these things have a common thread: loud people being incredibly uncaring and callous in their treatment of those who don’t think like them.

Unfortunately, these sort of debates can bring out the worst in people. It’s not pretty, but it’s the truth.

Now, I don’t see anything wrong with being passionate in your beliefs. There’s nothing wrong with that. However I draw the line when those who are loud start to swear and call people who believe differently than them horrible names and blame them for the ills of society. That’s not the way to get people on your side, especially if people who are undecided one way or another on an issue. In fact, if I had to summarize what’s the way to get people on your side of the debate, it’s not to be virulent, angry and inflammatory. No, it’s to be calm, respectful, and only armed with facts. I believe that’s the way famous saints and leaders have won the masses to them and made great impressions on history.

And the people who are loud, rude and imflammatory…well, I hesistate to say anything about them, lest I get called nasty names by these exact same people for the examples I might bring up of people who were like them. But you see the effect these sort of people have on others. They thrive on anger and use fear as their weapon, hoping that fear will make those opposed to them at least quiet down for fear of their wrath (we sometimes see this with lobbyists and Congress, unfortunately).

The lesson here is not to let your anger get the best of you, but let it drive you to enact better change, no matter what your beliefs on any issue may be. That’s the only way to make change, and to try doing the opposite will only cause you and your cause problems that may not be overcome. And no cause wants that, right?

What Is Luck To The Writer?

Posted: April 2, 2013 in Living and Life, Reflections, Writing
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Two posts I read recently got me thinking about something that many people talk about or wish they had: luck. Some people say there is no luck or if there is you make your own. Some say luck is something where a strange series of random events play out in your favor. And others say there’s a strange system or algorithm to luck that sometimes you can tap into, especially when you have a rabbit’s foot or some talisman like that. But how does luck work in the writing business, especially in these turbulent times when the author has to do so much themselves just to get their work into the hands readers, even the interested ones?

Well, that depends on who you ask: my friend and fellow author Pat Bertram (you might remember her as the person who did that wonderful interview a while back) mused in her article on the nature of luck and quoted a professor who believed that luck was the result of a consistently positive outlook on life (for the article look here: http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/can-you-change-your-luck/). And today, I read another author by the name of Richard Levesque, who concluded that no matter how much work you do on your own to advertise your book, luck still plays a big part in your success (for his post read here: http://richardlevesqueauthor.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/how-much-does-random-chance-account-for-a-writers-success/).

What’s my take? Well…it’s a little bit of both, with some of my own spiritual beliefs mixed in. First, I think having a positive outlook helps everyone on the road of life. You can be in a wrestling match and feel discouraged that the guy you’re facing is bigger and weights much more than you and let him beat you…or you can let yourself stay positive, notice that his weight is great but his stance is sloppy, and tackle him that way. You’l think “Lucky I noticed that”, but truth is, you were able to do that because you didn’t let yourself admit defeat and kept fighting, not just physically but mentally and psychologically, which allowed you to see that winning move.

At the same time, sometimes luck comes in random coincidences and events. Some of you remember nearly a year ago that I wrote a review for Anne Rice’s The Wolf Gift, then I sent her a letter telling her I enjoyed the book and including a link to the review, should she ever get bored. Well, either Ms. Rice reads a lot of her mail and all reviews she can find or she was bored, because the next Friday she linked my review to her Facebook page, causing my stats to explode. Never expected that to happen, and to think that Ms. Rice read my letter, let alone my review, still amazes me.

Still, I think that those random events and coincidences might be sometimes manipulated by The Big Guy Upstairs. Why do so many people thank God after they’ve won or achieved something so important in their lives? Maybe becuase on some level they realize that a certain Some Being helped them achieve that goal. At least, that’s what it seems to me, and it’s the reason why I thank Him for so many good things that happen in my life.

However luck works, it’s undeniable that it does act in a writer’s life. JK Rowling was lucky that her books were such successes, and Psy was lucky that his video, out of so many, became such a viral hit. In essence, luck is something that gives artists of all types boosts so that they become great. I don’t know if this great luck will ever come to me, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping that it will. But until that luck comes to me, I’ll keep fighting and working so that my success can come that much more easily.

Novels: Many Plots Or One Plot?

Posted: March 21, 2013 in Reflections, Writing
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I was watching a movie recently and at one point near the end, a literature teacher is teaching her class that there is only one plot in any work of fiction: “Who am I?” And when I logged onto the Internet a little while ago, I read a blog post by my friend and fellow author Pat Bertram (see here:http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/where-my-books-originated/) where she stated that at the core of every one of her novels, plus her memoir on grief, the central theme was “Who are we?” This all happened within a 48-hour period, so I definitely started thinking hard about these questions. Do all stories of fiction have just one plot to them, which can be summed up in “Who am I?” or “Who are we?”

Well, a lot of novels do have this question as a theme throughout the story. Plenty of coming-of-age novels are about children and teenagers finding themselves and learning just who they are, or becoming individuals, or finding their place in this chaotic universe. Heck, my own science-fiction novel Reborn City has plenty of identity themes in it, especially for Zahara and for the Hydras as a whole.

But at the same time, I’m not so sure that all stories are about “Who am I?” Look at some classic novels like “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens. I hated that novel, but I do know that the central story was about one character nearly getting his head chopped off because of a family relation’s crime. I don’t think the whole “Who am I?” question figured much, especially when one character kept trying to keep his head on his shoulders. And recently I read Henry James’s “Daisy Miller” for class. That had nothing to do with “Who am I?” It was an unidentified narrator telling us about a story he heard (with details and all) about a guy trying to court a naive young girl who spends too much time with men and gets slandered in society for it.

Of course if you would rather me use a modern example, how about “Daughter of Time” by Josephine Tey? That whole novel was about figuring out an actual conspiracy in history, not about the main character’s identity as a cop or anything. Or what about any of the Hannibal Lecter books? Those are about one agent trying to catch a serial-killing criminal while Hannibal gets in their heads.

Sure, one can make an argument that each one of those examples has someone trying to find themselves, whether they know it or not (Richard III certainly didn’t know in “Daughter of Time” that people were helping him clear his name, a form of finding themselves). But those arguments sometimes seem very circuitous to me, at least when I go through them in my messed-up head. And do they necessarily prove those stories are about “Who am I?” or “Who are we?” I’m not sure, but if you can make an argument that doesn’t seem long and circuitous, then by all means, go ahead. I’d love to hear it.

Still, I don’t think you can sum up all fiction in one sentence or one question. And as for my friend Pat Bertram, that’s just the sort of stories she writes. I write some that are like that and some that are definitely not like that (Snake comes to mind for the latter). So like many things in the writing world, it all depends on the author and their particular stories and preferences.

What’s your view? Are all stories under a particular question, or do they fall under different questions and themes and beliefs?

Stephen King Meets Stephen Colbert

Posted: March 3, 2013 in Living and Life
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I found this video thanks to Facebook, and I had to share it with you. Basically, His Scary Highness Stephen King met up with Stephen Colbert back in 2009 and they sat down for a rather funny–and at certain points creepy–conversation. Throughout the video there are homages and references to King’s novels and the movies based on his novels (good or bad).

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the video for some reason, but if you follow the link, you should be fine. Make sure to watch King’s expression in the hallway when he’s wearing matching sweaters with Colbert. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d think he’s just a grumpy, silver-haired man. But when you know his reputation…then the true terror sets in. Rawr!

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